MIND YOUR OWN BEESWAX

Coming soon! Genetically altered Red Chinese worker bees marching in Tiananmen Square.

As we’ve noted a couple of times before in The War on Farmers, overbearing government agencies seem to be on a campaign to wipe out small, independent food producers. Who the hell do you think you are, dear serf, to think you can just grow or consume whatever the hell you want, such as raw milk, organic eggs, almonds and walnuts, raw honey, or anything else not approved by the legions of nameless and faceless bureaucrats trying to justify their own existence at the FDA and USDA. You can, of course, consume all of the “government-approved” industrialized genetically altered Frankenfood you wish though.

And you can have all the Red Chinese Honey you want, since it is smuggled in and repackaged by large corporations.

What’s wrong with Communist honey, other than the obvious?

Food safety investigators from the European Union barred all shipments of honey from India [China ships their honey through India and other countries to avoid paying U.S. import tariffs] because of the presence of lead and illegal animal antibiotics. Further, they found an even larger amount of honey apparently had been concocted without the help of bees, made from artificial sweeteners and then extensively filtered to remove any proof of contaminants or adulteration or indications of precisely where the honey actually originated.

Another favorite con among Chinese brokers was to mix sugar water, malt sweeteners, corn or rice syrup, jaggery, barley malt sweetener or other additives with a bit of actual honey. In recent years, many shippers have eliminated the honey completely and just use thickened, colored, natural or chemical sweeteners labeled as honey.

"We're supposed to have the world's safest food supply but we're letting in boatloads of this adulterated honey that all these other countries know is contaminated and FDA does nothing."

Not that I’m for international organizations of any kind, especially the worthless UN, but the FDA says it has its own regulations prohibiting foods banned in other countries (such as the 27 nations in the European Union alone) from entering the U.S. But an agency spokesperson said they, “would not know about honey that has been banned from other countries." Government double-speak or sheer incompetence at its best, or both; it’s hard to tell with Fed.gov. Note that, as always, the government never seems to have to obey its own rules. Imagine that.

The FDA said it's doing the best it can with existing resources and will do more when the newly passed Food Safety Modernization Act is up and running.

“Existing resources” is a code word for the “Agency wants more money”. Perhaps if they spared some of the army of “resources” they use for busting Amish dairy farmers or little kids raising rabbits or whole food stores or…you get the picture…they could actually do something useful, such as interdicting Commie honey. But I guess it’s more important to devote year-long stings and raids to go after Eli and his Holsteins and their whole milk while they don't seem to be bothered by Chinese cows genetically modified to produce human breast milk.

"It's better for you because it's genetically modified."

As for the Food Safety Modernization Act, it amounts to little more than a whole buttload of more of bureaucratic red tape, fees, paperwork, and fines which would of course require a buttload more funding and employees for the FDA. .

For instance, all food production facilities in the U.S. will be required to register with Uncle Sam. No food will be allowed to be grown, distributed or sold outside this bureaucratic framework unless the FDA allows it. Any food that is distributed or sold outside of U.S. government control will be considered illegal smuggling.

Your annual “registration fee” will most likely be ruinously expensive for non-industrialized small timers. S. 510 will also give the FDA the power to conduct warrantless searches of the business records of small food producers and organic farmers, even if there has been no evidence at all that a law has been broken.

The bill will also place all U.S. food and all U.S. farms under the Department of Homeland Security in the event of a major "contamination" or an "emergency". What exactly would constitute a "contamination" or an "emergency"? Mind your own beeswax, peasant. It’s whatever the hell Fed.gov says it is, at the moment. Kind of like how the ATF can define a shoestring…I kid you not...as a “machine gun”.

Speaking of definitions, despite inquiries from agricultural groups and senators, the FDA refuses to even issue a definition of what they consider honey.

"If we had an official description of honey then FDA would have to inspect everything we're importing to ensure it's legal. That's the last thing we want to do.”

Oh, obviously.